ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A senior official has suggested that Turkey will press ahead with military operations against autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels even as Turkish officials hold talks with the rebels’ jailed leader to end the 28-year-old conflict.

Last week, the government confirmed that Turkey’s intelligence agency was talking to Abdullah Ocalan with the aim of convincing the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, to disarm. Ocalan has been serving a life sentence on a prison island off Istanbul since 1999.

Yet Yalcin Akdogan, chief adviser to the Turkish prime minister, wrote in the Star newspaper Friday that “there is no question of suspending or halting the fight against terrorism.”

The PKK is seeking self-rule for Kurds in southeast Turkey. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people since 1984.